Leading English prelate rips spousal visa policy

Archbishop Vincent Nichols of Westminster has urged the British government to change a new policy that prevents non-EU spouses of UK citizens from being granted a spousal visa unless they earn £18,600 ($30,346) per year.

“Anyone truly concerned for the family as the building block of society, and realistic about the mobility of British people today, must see both the folly of this policy and how it is an affront to the status of British citizenship,” he said in The Guardian.

“The government's intention with these new regulations is to cut the number of immigrants from outside the European Union,” he continued. “But in doing so, is it the government's intention to penalize British citizens? To undermine marriages and to split up families?”

“Other EU citizens are free to come and live in the UK with spouses from outside the EU,” he added. “And yet British citizens do not enjoy the same rights. The feeling of being victimized by one's own government is a bitter pill to swallow.”

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